


Everyone is sad. This sucks.

by Grimbeak



Series: Scorpion-crabs and bad parenting fuck everything up [3]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Animal Attack, Depressing phone calls, Except it's subtext for two naked guys in paintings and it's not even subtext, Homoerotic subtext, I write realistic things and I am funny, Lloyd Garmadon Needs Therapy, Lloyd Garmadon Needs a Hug, Lloyd gets a plushy and I think that is very cool, Museum hunts, Pixal being a wine aunt, Pixal is his therapist, Two idiots look everywhere but an actual vacation spot, aftermath of apparent character death, breakdowns, i love them, thank god, this entire chapter was basically an excuse to write pixal and lloyd bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29830023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimbeak/pseuds/Grimbeak
Summary: Pixal is tired, Lloyd is even more tired, and Jay is elsewhere being not-dead. He does not show up. This makes everyone very upset.Alternate title: Night at the museum except it's actually day at the museum and they're there for like half an hour
Relationships: Cole/Kai/Jay Walker/Zane, Lloyd Garmadon & Kai, Pixal (Ninjago) & Lloyd Garmadon
Series: Scorpion-crabs and bad parenting fuck everything up [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180064
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Everyone is sad. This sucks.

**Author's Note:**

> hey babes

Lloyd dodged the creature snapping at his legs, skidding around the corner of the house. “Pixal, a little help?”

The nindroid didn’t respond, still clacking away at her computer inside. 

Lloyd saw that there was a fence blocking his only way out, and cursed (Pixal would scold him for it later), backing up against a tree. “Pix, come on!” 

Pixal waved a hand at him as she was still typing in one hand. Her muffled voice came through the closed window- “I’m working as fast as I can.” 

Lloyd groaned in annoyance and displeasure, turning around quickly to try to make his way up the tree. He did manage to, eventually, seating himself around four feet off the ground as the beast viciously snapped at the bark below him, trying to claw it’s way up the trunk but luckily failing as it tipped backward in it’s rage, squirming on the grass and barking ferociously. 

“Pixal, I could use that help! Like, now!” 

“Done!” The nindroid slammed her laptop shut and disappeared from Lloyd’s view. The backyard door opened a second later. “I’m here to assist, what’s the probl-”

She stopped.

She stared.

“Lloyd.” 

“Pixal, just make it stop-”

“Lloyd, it’s a chihuahua.” 

“It’s a fierce beast!” The green ninja yelped as the beast in question flipped itself over, returning to clawing and attempting to hop up the tree. “Stop it! Pix, can you just- I dunno, paralyze it or something?” 

“It’s a  _ dog. _ ” Pixal walked over and allowed the said dog to try to bite her titanium ankle with no success. “See? Not going to hurt you.”

“You’re a nindroid! You don’t- no offense- you don’t have skin! I have skin! That can bleed! I do not want to bleed!” 

“Lloyd, please.” Pixal picked the dog up and it wriggled and barked in her arms, biting every part of her it could reach. She didn’t react. “There is nothing wrong. Please come down from the tree.” 

Lloyd hesitated, moving one of his legs cautiously down the trunk. “You promise you’ll hold it the whole time?”   
  


The nindroid smirked slightly. “Promise.”

The green ninja waited a few more seconds before sliding down the tree trunk, cautiously landing on the ground with one hand on a branch in case he needed to jump up again. He carefully moved over to the side of the house, pressing as close to it as possible to avoid the demon dog making it’s way out of Pixal’s arms and attacking him again. 

The nindroid watching him rolled her eyes, attempting to pet the dog, whose face was now in eternal growling mode.

Lloyd eventually made his way back inside the house, slamming the screen door behind him. He just breathed for a few seconds, relaxing after the horrible chase. 

Then an old woman entered the room carrying a tray of cookies and he screamed louder than Zane had when he forgot he had a pie in the oven that one Tuesday.

***

Pixal sat at her computer again, typing away and occasionally muttering to herself- she was trying to work out where Misako had been seen last. From all they knew, Misako had just told them she and Wu were going on a ‘vacation.’ Lloyd had made a grossed-out face at the implications. 

However, she was a well-enough known archaeologist, so… hopefully they would be able to find records of her being somewhere recently. 

The chihuahua was sitting on Pixal’s lap, practically purring whenever she reached down to scratch it. 

Lloyd was sitting on the couch, quietly sipping his tea and eating a cookie that had recently been dropped on the floor. 

The owner of the house, Ms. Gardner, was sitting in her rocking chair while knitting, occasionally shifting her eyes over to Lloyd to make sure he didn’t make her drop anything else. 

“Thanks again for letting us use your computer, ma’am,” Pixal said, mostly still focussed on what she was doing. “We really appreciate it.”

“Not a problem,” the old woman chirped. “Always happy to help someone in need.” Pixal got the feeling she was staring uncomfortably at Lloyd for the next bit. “Although I’d appreciate it if you stayed out of my backyard.” 

A muttered, almost silent “Sorry” came from the green ninja, and Pixal smiled to herself as she turned back to her work. 

A few more tense minutes of clicking and clacking and all sorts of computer stuff and she was done. One last click of the mouse and she was printing off a list of possible locations- mostly museums, a couple hotels, and one donut place. Pixal didn’t really understand the reasoning for the last one, but Lloyd had insisted that it was a shop his mother would love. 

An annoying beep came from the printer. Pixal glanced over.

A pop-up on the mini screen the printer had (Pixal noticed a Borg label on the side and smiled slightly) read  **Paper not processing correctly. Please try again.**

She did.

**Paper not processing correctly. Please try again.**

Another time.

**Paper not processing correctly. Please try again.**

Pixal rested her face on the keyboard with a groan.

Ms. Gardner patted her on the back. “They always tend to break when you’re in a rush, don’t they.” 

***

After another hour of intruding the old woman’s home (consisting of a twenty-minute attempt of trying to restart the printer before it randomly decided to work again, Lloyd eating at least a dozen more cookies, and Lloyd then proceeding to attempt to make friends with the chihuahua (who was a girl and her name was Tina) resulting in another ten minutes of Pixal putting band-aids on all his fingers), Pixal and Lloyd finally left with another box of bandages and a promise to hopefully never have to go back there again. 

“Well,” said Lloyd as the door slammed shut behind them, “that went well.” 

Pixal hit him with the box of bandages. 

***

“This sucks,” said Lloyd for about the 87th time that day.

Pixal would have hit him with the rolled-up list but she was scanning it, checking the location they needed to go to next. 

They had hit two out of three of the hotels already, the donut place, and about half the museums in basically just a week. Lloyd was… clearly exhausted, but Pixal was insisting they hit one last museum and then take the weekend off to relax. Maybe try to find a way to contact the others back at the bounty, that sort of thing.

“This one,” the nindroid said eventually, tapping on a name on the list. “I’ve researched it, and it has history in around the era your mother specialized in.” 

Lloyd groaned, muttering something about how he “didn’t wanna go” and how he was “bored out of his damn mind”.

Pixal, ignoring him, grabbed his arm and pulled him in the direction of the museum. 

Hopefully this one would have better luck than the last two.

***

Thirty minutes later, Pixal was in a hallway with enormous paintings covering the walls, some that were simply splashes of paint and some that were quite naked men very close to one another. Historians would say they were good friends.

“They were very good friends,” a nearby tour guide explained to his group. “So close, in fact, that they insisted they be buried next to each other rather than their wives.” 

Pixal rolled her eyes, moving away from the group of humans and heading over to sit on one of the benches. 

There wasn’t any art in this hall that was representing anything from Ninjago City- Pixal wasn’t sure how far away they were from their home, but it must’ve been pretty far to not have anything from the city over here. There were paintings that  _ could  _ have been from Ninjago’s past, but it was too hard to tell with the strict five feet anyone had to keep from the paintings- out of spitting range, one of the security guards had explained to her. 

Because _ apparently _ a major concern was that people would spit on the paintings. 

Pixal sighed, almost walking out of the hall when one of the security guards grabbed her arm and handed her a phone. “It’s for you, miss,” he said apologetically. “I think it’s your son?” 

“I don’t have a-” she cut off upon pressing the phone to her ear and hearing Lloyd’s guilty voice on the other end. “What did you do.” 

_ “I, um. May have been arguing with a security guard about my mom not being here, so I kind of. Um.”  _

“You  _ what. _ ” 

_ “...I may have spit on a painting.”  _

Pixal moved the phone away from her ear.

And sighed very loudly.

The security guard looked at her pityingly, and mouthed the words ‘Do you want a vodka shot from the back room?’

Pixal shook her head. She could get that at the hotel she was going to drag Lloyd into after this.

She put the phone back up to her ear. “No gift shop for you.”

_ “What? Come on!” _

“No.”

_ “Pixal,  _ please?” She could practically feel him doing puppy eyes on the other end of the line. Luckily, nindroids were immune to such things.

“...Fine.” 

Pixal was not very good at upholding nindroid immunity standards. 

***

Pixal fidgeted with the hotel room key, trying to fit it into the lock in just the right way. Lloyd stood next to her, holding his plush geode from the gift shop and only looking mildly traumatized from the experience they had had several minutes before. 

(Ronin had sprinted by, pausing for breath next to them. “What did you do,” Pixal had asked.

Ronin had hesitated for a second until a furious-looking woman appeared in the hallway, and he pointed to her. “Her husband,” he had said, before sprinting away and jumping out the window.

Good thing they were on the second floor. He’d be ok.

Probably.)

Finally managing to unlock the door, Lloyd practically stumbled his way to one of the beds and instantly collapsed onto it with a low groan. He curled up into a ball slightly, and Pixal gently flicked him. “Don’t fall asleep yet, chosen one. Got any new info about your mom’s whereabouts?”

“Nothing,” the green ninja groaned. “I didn’t find anything in the museum about resurrection, either.” He went silent, for a second, then asked, quietly, “What if… What if we can’t bring Jay back? What if he’s just… gone forever.” 

Pixal’s throat grew tight. “That won’t happen,” she declared, mostly to reassure Lloyd (and herself) rather than anything. “We  _ will _ find a way to bring him back, even if we have to search every museum in the world to do it.” 

Her friend didn’t respond, instead squeezing his plushy a bit tighter. Pixal hesitated, then set the papers down on the desk, going to sit next to Lloyd. “It’ll be ok, I promise.” 

Lloyd didn’t answer, only crawling over to rest his head on her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair absently, him clearly needing the comfort.

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes, until Lloyd piped up again. “Why’d you come with me?” 

“Because you needed me,” Pixal answered automatically. After a few seconds, she added, “And because you are my friend and I did not want to have you be searching alone in an unfamiliar place.” 

Lloyd nodded, and Pixal felt like she needed to say something else. “Also you are fifteen and cannot drive.”

“I can drive!”

“You can drive the bounty and your vehicles. What about a regular car?”

Lloyd was silent, and Pixal laughed slightly. “My point exactly.”

The pair was quiet, for a while, until the TV in their hotel room turned on suddenly and Lloyd let out a yell, nearly falling off the bed in his surprise. He looked up, hair wild. “The hell was that?”

Pixal grabbed the remote turning the volume down- she spoke as she did so. “I programmed my computer to turn on any device that has current or recent information about Misako’s whereabouts.” She looked back at the TV- there was a news feed about someone seeing Misako and Wu at-

“Oh.”

Lloyd scrambled back onto the bed, looking at her rather than the TV screen.    
“What? What’s wrong?”

Pixal let out a shaky breath. “Lloyd, what’s a common vacation spot?”

“Mega Monster Amusement Park?”   


“No, think- think summer vacation.”

“...The beach?”

Pixal gestured to the TV. It was now showing a picture of Misako and Wu on a beach, staring out into the ocean. 

“...Oh.” Lloyd was silent for a moment, contemplating. “A beach makes a lot more sense for a vacation spot than all the museums you were dragging me to.” 

Pixal hit him with the TV remote. 

***

Hours later, Lloyd was lying along on his bed, his new plush rock next to him.

Pixal was on her own bed a few feet away from him. She had shut down for the night, but before she did it standing up and accidentally terrifying Lloyd in the middle of the night when he got up to get a drink of water, the green ninja had convinced her it would be more comfortable to shut down on the bed. 

...Also, he just felt safer that way.

He turned in bed, facing the ceiling-high windows. They weren’t very high up, only on the second floor, but at least they still got a nice view of the street. 

A few cars passed below them in the dark, the rumbling noise and their headlights the only true sign that they were there. 

Lloyd sighed in the silent room, the only thing confirming there was another person (or, rather, nindroid) in there was a low whirring sound coming from the other bed. 

He couldn’t sleep.

He always found it hard to, in strange beds. Usually he had a melatonin-theanine to sleep better (and to help his anxiety a little bit), but they had ran out yesterday. Pixal had said she was going to pick up some more today, but with all the chaos she must’ve forgotten.

Lloyd didn’t blame her for it- it was a simple mistake, and he could probably sleep without it. Eventually. 

He kind of wanted to turn on his phone and start reading a book from his library app, but it might keep him awake longer.

Or not. It was always hard to tell, with electronics in bed. 

He settled on turning on his phone anyway, instead selecting the app he used to text all the other ninja.

His eyes landed on Jay’s number, eventually, and after a moment of hesitation he clicked on it.

No new messages, nothing Lloyd hadn’t read, just… one last conversation around three months ago, then nothing.

...Honestly, he would be surprised if Jay’s phone even worked- it was probably at the bottom of the lake. 

Lloyd decided to not text anything, realizing that it would probably hurt not to get a message back.

…

Instead, he hopped out of bed, hid in the bathroom where he wouldn’t disturb Pixal (she wouldn’t wake up, but… still.), and pressed the call button. 

The phone rang for a few beats, and Lloyd was about to hang up before something stopped him.

Jay’s voice. His heart leapt, but then-  


_ “Hey there! It’s Jay. This is, uh, a recording, so… I’m probably fighting stuff or hanging out with friends. Or sleeping. Or eating- well, you get the idea. Leave a voicemail, I’ll call back as soon as possible, unless you’re really evil and I don’t want to talk to you. Bye!” _

There were a few seconds before the  _ click _ , and in those few seconds Lloyd had the most overwhelming series of thoughts he had ever had in his life. 

I’m not going to share them with you, because they were too overwhelming, and. Yeah.

Lloyd finally spoke a few moments after the click, voice a bit thick. “Jay? It’s, uh, Lloyd. I’m… you’re- I’m gonna bring you back. Pixal and I- w know where Misako is, and-” he swallowed- “and we’re going to look for her tomorrow. ...Or today,” he admitted, looking at the clock. One AM. “I can’t sleep.

“..It’s nice here. I’m sure you would like it- there’s lots of electronics for you to mess around with, and I’m pretty sure the toaster is broken. Something for you to fix when you get back.”  _ If _ he got back. “...Don’t think the hotel would mind.

“And, uh-” Lloyd’s breath hitched, and he sank down to the floor, curling up and pressing his back against the bathtub. “...I really miss you. And- and I’m not sure how much more of you being gone I can handle, I mean, Pixal and I- we’re not even with the others. They’re still where you… fell, and I don’t know how long it’ll take until they can catch up. 

“Anyway, uh… I miss you. I know I said that already, but I really do, and- and I want you to be back soon, ok? I just… I don’t know how well we can handle being without you.” 

Lloyd was silent for a few seconds, before he found the final courage to mutter, “Love you, bye,” and clicked the end voicemail button.

And then he broke down.

Sobs shook his body as his hands grabbed desperately at his uniform, clenching it until his fingernails were digging into his skin as well.

Giving up on that, Lloyd reached his arms around himself, squeezing as tightly as he could for  _ some  _ source of comfort. His hands brushed against the tattoo on his back, and he pressed down on it _ hard _ to spread the tingling feeling throughout his body. It was almost numbing. 

He cried for at least another minute before a ringing sound shook him out of it, and he glanced up through bleary eyes to see his phone buzzing on the counter.

It took him a minute to process, but then the green ninja was practically diving for his phone, grabbing at it and having his heart jump a little (a  _ lot _ ) at the fact that he had several missed calls from Jay, and a new one coming in. 

He hurriedly fumbled with the device, finally managing to hit the answer button as hard as possible (he would find a new crack in his screen in the morning) and pressing it to his ear. “Hello?” 

_ “Lloyd?”  _ The voice was slightly staticky, but still unmistakably Kai’s.  _ “It’s me- are you ok?” _

“I-” Lloyd’s heart dropped suddenly as he realized it was not the friend he was looking for, but it was a friend all the same, and the one he looked up to like his older brother. “I’m-” and then he was crying again, tears streaming down his face as hurried assurances came from the other end of the line. 

_ “Woah, buddy. It’s ok, it’s ok, I’m right here- well, not  _ here _ here, but I’m here. Kind of.”  _

Lloyd let out a choked laugh, pulling his geode plush close to him with one hand. “I’m- how are you calling? There’s-there’s no wifi there.”

Kai’s voice came through again, a little more clear.  _ “Ja- Jay’s phone apparently has wifi all the time- probably was connected to his powers in some way. It still has 76% left, I’m keeping the brightness all the way down so it doesn’t lose its charge quickly- Jay had it at full brightness, like a _ heathen _. But that’s not really important right now- are you ok?”  _

“I’m-” Lloyd nodded, before remembering that Kai couldn’t see him. “I’m ok.”

They both knew he was lying.

_  
_ _ “Right, well… Do you want me to keep talking for a while? I’m sure Zane can find a way to charge the phone if it gets low…”  _

Lloyd swallowed, holding his geode close. “Yeah. That’d be nice.” 

**Author's Note:**

> bai babes
> 
> Anything specific y'all want me to add in the next chapter (gonna be the ninja interacting before they leave)? I'd be happy to! Also please I don't have a lot of ideas for that part please god help me-
> 
> Comments are appreciated.


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